The Damnation of Theron Ware | Page 9

crowning blessedness of his youth--nay, should
he not say of all his days?-- had come to him. There he had first seen
Alice Hastings,-- the bright-eyed, frank-faced, serenely self-reliant girl,
who now, less than four years thereafter, could be heard washing the
dishes out in the parsonage kitchen.
How wonderful she had seemed to him then! How beautiful and
all-beneficent the miracle still appeared! Though herself the daughter of
a farmer, her presence on a visit within the borders of his remote
country charge had seemed to make everything, there a hundred times
more countrified than it had ever been before. She was fresh from the
refinements of a town seminary: she read books; it was known that she
could play upon the piano. Her clothes, her manners, her way of
speaking, the readiness of her thoughts and sprightly tongue-- not least,
perhaps, the imposing current understanding as to her father's
wealth--placed her on a glorified pinnacle far away from the girls of the
neighborhood. These honest and good-hearted creatures indeed called
ceaseless attention to her superiority by their deference and
open-mouthed admiration, and treated it as the most natural thing in the
world that their young minister should be visibly "taken" with her.
Theron Ware, in truth, left this first pastorate of his the following
spring, in a transfiguring halo of romance. His new appointment was to
Tyre--a somewhat distant village of traditional local pride and
substance--and he was to be married only a day or so before entering
upon his pastoral duties there. The good people among whom he had
begun his ministry took kindly credit to themselves that he had met his
bride while she was "visiting round" their countryside. In part by jocose
inquiries addressed to the expectant groom, in part by the confidences
of the postmaster at the corners concerning the bulk and frequency of

the correspondence passing between Theron and the now remote
Alice--they had followed the progress of the courtship through the
autumn and winter with friendly zest. When he returned from the
Conference, to say good-bye and confess the happiness that awaited
him, they gave him a "donation"--quite as if he were a married pastor
with a home of his own, instead of a shy young bachelor, who received
his guests and their contributions in the house where he boarded.
He went away with tears of mingled regret and proud joy in his eyes,
thinking a good deal upon their predictions of a distinguished career
before him, feeling infinitely strengthened and upborne by the hearty
fervor of their God-speed, and taking with him nearly two wagon-loads
of vegetables, apples, canned preserves, assorted furniture, glass dishes,
cheeses, pieced bedquilts, honey, feathers, and kitchen utensils.
Of the three years' term in Tyre, it was pleasantest to dwell upon the
beginning.
The young couple--after being married out at Alice's home in an
adjoining county, under the depressing conditions of a hopelessly
bedridden mother, and a father and brothers whose perceptions were
obviously closed to the advantages of a matrimonial connection with
Methodism--came straight to the house which their new congregation
rented as a parsonage. The impulse of reaction from the rather grim
cheerlessness of their wedding lent fresh gayety to their lighthearted,
whimsical start at housekeeping. They had never laughed so much in
all their lives as they did now in these first months--over their weird
ignorance of domestic details; with its mishaps, mistakes, and
entertaining discoveries; over the comical super-abundances and
shortcomings of their "donation" outfit; over the thousand and one
quaint experiences of their novel relation to each other, to the
congregation, and to the world of Tyre at large.
Theron, indeed, might be said never to have laughed before. Up to that
time no friendly student of his character, cataloguing his admirable
qualities, would have thought of including among them a sense of
humor, much less a bent toward levity. Neither his early strenuous
battle to get away from the farm and achieve such education as should

serve to open to him the gates of professional life, nor the later wave of
religious enthusiasm which caught him up as he stood on the
border-land of manhood, and swept him off into a veritable new world
of views and aspirations, had been a likely school of merriment. People
had prized him for his innocent candor and guileless mind, for his good
heart, his pious zeal, his modesty about gifts notably above the average,
but it had occurred to none to suspect in him a latent funny side.
But who could be solemn where Alice was?--Alice in a quandary over
the complications of her cooking stove; Alice boiling her potatoes all
day, and her eggs for half an hour; Alice ordering twenty pounds of
steak and half a pound of sugar, and striving to extract a